Posts tagged “Divorce”

My client is sad but composed. She has tried very hard to make it work out and is apologizing to me for “wasting” my time. My gentle admonition that any struggle to save a marriage stressed by PD was never wasted time brings a shrug. However, we are both aware there has been a shift in the work we have been doing. It is clear that our strategy will now be one of navigating through the shoals of guilt, recrimination, and grief that are inevitable when a couple needs to divorce.

So why does PD appear in custody battles? I won’t speculate on the motives of either spouses or their divorce attorneys other than to say that no one enters a court case with the intent to lose. A chronic neurological disease like Parkinson’s is often so grossly misunderstood by the general public that it may seem like a compelling opportunity to cast the spouse who has it in an unfavorable light. Throw words like incurable, progressive and debilitating into one legal document or courtroom statement and it is quite possible to play upon public misperception.